UN Designates Malala Day, Honoring Pakistani School Girl

A member of a provincial assembly offers a prayer on Malala Day in Peshawar, Pakistan, November 10, 2012.

The United Nations has designated November 10 as Malala Day, in honor of 15-year-old Pakistani school girl Malala Yousafzai who was shot in the head by the Taliban a month ago. She was targeted by the group for promoting the right of girls to attend school and for speaking out against militants.

Still, the French news agency reports that as the world observes Malala Day Saturday, security fears in Mingora, Malala's hometown, have prevented her classmates from honoring her in public.

Malala is recovering from her wounds at a hospital in Britain where doctors say she is expected to make a good recovery.

Former British prime minister Gordon Brown is in Pakistan Saturday to deliver a petition with over a million signatures to President Asif Zardari calling on the country’s government to make education a reality for all Pakistani children.

Brown, who is the U.N.'s envoy for global education, says a new foundation has been established to honor the school girl. The Malala Foundation will do the work that the teenager told her friends just weeks before she was shot that she wanted to do - campaign for the 32 million girls around the world who are not in school.

Nearly 90,000 have signed another petition to have Malala nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Shahida Choudhary, the British woman who set up the petition at change.org says Malala speaks out for all those who are denied an education based purely on their gender.

In the U.S., Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee says she will work with members of Congress to award Malala the prestigious Congressional Gold Medal.
Source: http://www.voanews.com/content/un-designates-malala-day-in-honor-of-pakistani-school-girl/1543221.html